Let us first, as before, take the statement of an adversary. I translate from the "Memoire Theologique." "A convulsionist laid herself on the floor, flat on her back; and a man, kneeling beside her, and raising a flint stone, weighing upwards of twenty pounds, as high as he could, after several preliminary trials, dashed it, with all his force, against the breast of the convulsionist, giving her one hundred such blows in succession."[25] To this Montgeron subjoins,--"But the author ought to have added, that, at each blow, the whole room shook, the floor trembled, and the spectators could not repress a shudder at the frightful noise which was heard, as each blow fell on the convulsionist's breast." We need not be surprised that he adds,--"Not only ought such strokes naturally to rupture the minute vessels, the delicate glands, the veins and the arteries of which the breast is composed,--not only ought they, in the course of Nature, to have crushed and reduced the whole to a bloody mass,--but they ought to have shattered to pieces the bones and cartilages by which the breast is inclosed."[26] This was the view of the case taken by a celebrated physician of the day. Montgeron tells us:--"This philosopher maintained that the facts alleged could not be true, because they were physically impossible. He raised, among other objections, this,--that the flexible, delicate nature of the skin, of the flesh, and of the viscera, is incompatible with a force and a consistency so extraordinary as the alleged facts presuppose; and, consequently, that it was impossible, without ceasing to be what they are,--without a radical change in their qualities,--that they should acquire a force superior to that of the hardest and most solid bodies. They let him quietly complete his anatomical argument, and set forth all his proofs, and merely answered, 'Come and see; test the truth of the facts for yourself.' He went. At first sight, he is seized with astonishment; he doubts the evidence of his eyes; he asks to be allowed himself to administer the succors. They immediately place in his hands iron bars of a crushing weight. He does not spare his blows; he exerts his utmost strength. The weapon sinks into the flesh, seems to penetrate to the entrails. But the convulsionist only laughs at his idle efforts. His blows but procure her relief, without leaving the least impression, the slightest trace, even on the epidermis."[27] Space fails me to furnish more than a very few additional specimens of the endless incidents of which the details are scattered by Montgeron over hundreds of pages,--incidents occurring in various parts of Paris, daily, for many years. Three or four more of these may suffice for my present purpose.